Sepher ha-Ploiderzak, o Me’orath Tziph’onim [“Vipers’ Den”]

Long before the Harvard Lampoon, there existed Ephraim Deinard’s Ploiderzak. Deinard’s barbs are directed at the literary figures of his day: Eliezer Ben Yehudah (p. 37), Abraham Elijah Harkavy (p. 97), Michael Levi Rodkinson, author of Toldoth Amudei Chaba”d (pp. 16, 59, 73), et al. As ever, “R. Ephroimele” (as Deinard endearingly refers to himself) reserves a full quiver of arrows for the various Chassidic groups and their spiritual leaders. (See his impressions of R. Moses of Sevran on pp. 5-6; R. Yochanan of Rachmistrivka on p. 10; and R. David of Tolna on p. 73.) But neither are leaders of Lithuanian Jewry (or their wives) out of reach of Deinard’s harpoons. Thus, a favorite target is the “Brisker Rebbetzin,” wife of R. Joshua Leib Diskin of Jerusalem, who was notorious for her unrelenting attacks on free-thinkers (see pp. 59, 73, 90)